Monitoring Child Growth and Development through the Stimulation-Cognitive Application

Abstract

Introduction : The early age period is a crucial phase in children's growth and development that requires optimal monitoring and stimulation, especially in cognitive, language, and social-emotional aspects. However, low knowledge and involvement of mothers in proper stimulation practices are still the main challenges in monitoring child growth and development. This community service activity aims to improve the quality of supervision of child growth and development through the use of the Stimulasi-Cognitive  application as a means of monitoring cognitive development and increasing maternal sensitivity in mothers under five in Bandung. Method : The method used is a participatory and educational approach through counseling, training, mentoring, and pre-test and post-test evaluation. The activity involved 50 mothers who had children aged 0–5 years. Interventions include child growth and development education, training on the use of Stimulation-Cognitive applications, and assistance in using applications for 2–4 weeks. Data was collected through knowledge questionnaires, observation of application usage skills, brief interviews, and application usage data. Result : The results showed a significant increase in mothers' knowledge of child growth and development indicators, shown by an increase in comprehension scores of 84% in the post-test compared to the initial condition. In addition, as many as 90% of participants were able to use the application independently, and the application was used to monitor more than 50 children during the mentoring period. The cognitive stimulation recommendation feature has been proven to encourage active involvement of mothers in accompanying children at home and increase maternal responsiveness to children's developmental needs. Conclusion : Stimulation-Cognitive-based education and mentoring  are effective in improving maternal knowledge, skills, and sensitivity, and have the potential to become a technology-based model for monitoring child growth and development that can be integrated into Puskesmas services.